Holistic Wellness

Yoga comes in many forms. While the asanas receive the most attention in yoga classes, the poses are meant to condition and prepare the body for seated meditation. The goal of this meditation is to clear the mind, focus the attention, and open the heart to find union with the divine. Free from referencing any specific deity, the divine in this sense embraces the entirety of the universe and our perception of all that is good and true within it.

The practice of yoga in the West often focuses on movement, devoting more time to the physical exercises and less time on exploring yoga's mental and spiritual dimensions. While we feel a sense of accomplishment from sweating and stretching our way through difficult sequences, sitting still is sometimes the hardest pose of all. TogetherYoga's holistic wellness sessions offer guidance for finding that empowering inner stillness. Sessions are individually tailored to reduce physical and mental stress, sharpen the mind's focus, increase body-awareness, strengthen physical presence, improve mindfulness, and impart a sense of lasting well-being through spiritual connection to the consciousness that unites creation.

Often just the feeling of transcending the self can increase confidence, reduce anxiety, and improve mental clarity. Learning to meditate can also improve impulse control and empower the mind to work through problems with temper, negativity, appetite, procrastination, creative blocks, compulsions, and addictions.

Meditation and mindfulness sessions can be personalized or shared with a private group to provide extra support. Because the mind takes time to adopt new habits, sessions are most effective when taken in a series. Please see session rates for options.

Passing through the Gates of Perception

What we experience as reality is a combination of stimuli and perception. While the external world exists outside of us, our experience of it is largely determined by our interior state. Our inner life meets the outer world at the gates of our perception.

Buddhist and Vedic philosophy maintains that emotional suffering and pain arise from the mind's resistance to the challenges that confront it. This is not to say that suffering and pain are illusions. Anyone who has ever had a broken heart or a bruised ego knows the feelings are "real" enough to trigger physical sensations and instinctive responses. Pain that starts in the mind can hurt and cripple the body. Yoga, as practiced through both asana and meditation, seeks to liberate the mind and body from this mental and physical suffering.

While life is inherently challenging, the question of whether we suffer or endure is always an exercise in perception. When our senses conduct the exterior world into our interior universe, our perceptions—as formed by our experiences and expectations—govern what we feel. Meditation offers the opportunity to explore our preconceptions, observe our thoughts, and move through the gates of our perception to arrive at our essential selves, which are always free, eternal, connected, and calm.